Underwater
Your stepfather is sitting on your dead mother’s veranda in that silly purple silk robe with his belly showing and his bare legs sprawled out. His eyes look down to the skin between your bathing suit top and the towel around your waist. No matter where you are in the enormous California house your mother left him when she died a year ago, you feel caged by those eyes.
“For the third time. No!” He looks up at your face, squinting in the sun, and you imagine stabbing the black pinholes in his eyes with a pen. You shouldn’t have to endure your friends’ teasing because you can never go out with them. You promised them you would go to the beach party tonight.
“You’re an asshole, Edward.”
“Watch that tongue. And you’re only thirteen so you’ll call me Dad.”
You sit down across from him and slide your hands into your lap so he can’t see the red polish. Mother would say honey catches more flies.
“Daddy, I’m sorry I swore at you. But please! I promise not to do anything bad.”
His dark eyes glare a silent no. You leave the table and stomp to the pool defeated.
You dive.
Underwater your hair swirls in yellow strands around your face while you make figure eights with your arms and let your legs dangle, thinking Ariel a silly little mermaid for wanting to leave this. You remember your mother’s hands holding your body in the water when she taught you to swim, even before you could walk. Your mother the sea goddess danced with you underwater, leaving your stepfather distorted and unreal in the separate realm of air. After she died, you practiced holding your breath so you could stay under the silent water longer, alone.
An idea you try to silence taps louder in your head.
Let him look.
Then he’ll say yes.
It won’t hurt just this once.
Before your lungs are empty, you take off your bathing suit top and leave it in the pool.
The newspaper is on his lap, and he gawks at you while you climb from the pool. His eyes lap up the water rolling down your skin.
“Come here,” he whispers like he’s trying to coax a shy dog. He stares at your pale small breasts inside a frame of tan lines as you inch toward him.
“You can go.” His voice cracks as he reaches out for you, and the newspaper falls to the ground. “But just this once.”
Behind him through the French doors, you notice the cleaning lady vacuuming the same spot over and over, watching you. Your hands with the red painted nails are all you have to cover yourself. With your head down and wet hair slapping your cheeks, you run back into the pool and sink. You see his refracted form walk to the edge.
You stay under longer than ever until your lungs ache, and you can’t stand it anymore.
